The Life Of A Woman Who Is Not Jack Davis
by Patrick Phelan
Summary: In which Angela Orosco is constantly tormented and finally probably commits suicide. It's a happy tale for the whole family. (Silent Hill 2)


**Patient Record: Jack Davis**  
_He has attempted suicide three times in the past for reasons unknown. Although he is normally a model patient who follows doctor's and nurse's orders, he must be watched closely due to his past pattern of sudden and violent suicide attempts._  
  


* * *

Her names were sometimes Angela Orosco and she was always damned.  
  
She tried not to be. She did everything she was told, and everything that people told her would make her a good person. She wore Grandmama's medal all the time, even when she went to bed, and only took it off to shower (naked and vulnerable, and she always locked the door). It didn't help.  
  
Grandmama had stopped talking to her about damnation and Purgatory, because Mama had told her to. It didn't matter. Angela knew what she knew.  
  


* * *

Angela had only one grandpa and only one Grandmama. Grandpa was Daddy's papa and Grandmama was Mama's mama. Until she was four, Angela believed that masculinity or femininity was passed down along bloodlines, and wondered what that made her. Until she was seven, Angela believed that this illustrated the murky concept of original sin that Grandmama had brought up. For her entire life, at least part of Angela believed both things.  
  
She visited one of her grandparents for at least a few hours every month. She wondered why, sometimes. Whenever she visited grandpa Daddy was always angry, and whenever she visited Grandmama Mama was always angry, but they never stopped taking her to visit them. Angela sometimes wondered if she could visit someone who didn't make anyone angry.  
  
When she visited grandpa, they played a game that grandpa called Ludo and Mama called Sorry and Angela didn't call anything at all. She just thought of it as the game she played with grandpa. It was fun but it made her upset sometimes. The point was to get all your pieces home, but whenever they played, grandpa always sent all her pieces back to the start long before she could ever get any of them home. For a while, he said they'd play the American game, and said "Sorry" whenever he landed on a piece and sent it back to the start. She didn't like that. His old man's voice was querulous and scratchy, and he sounded like he meant it whenever he apologised, and it was **_only a game_**. She was happy when he stopped.  
  
When she visited Grandmama, they had tea under a picture of Jesus, but Grandmama never talked about Jesus any more. Angela had asked her why not, and she'd said something about "Thomas doesn't care for me reading Scripture to you", which Angela thought meant that Jesus made Daddy angry. At first that would have surprised Angela, because she thought that Jesus loved everyone and no one could be angry at that. But the last bit of the Bible Grandmama had ever read to her was from the Book of Matthew, and Angela had asked if He also came to set the daughter against her father, and Grandmama hadn't said anything else for a while. When she told Daddy, Daddy had been to talk to Grandmama, and there had been no more Jesus.  
  
She didn't remember what had happened to Grandmama, but grandpa had died when Angela was six. She'd been sad that grandpa had died, and she'd been angry that the only way she could think about it was that grandpa had gotten all his pieces home for the last time, and her pieces would always be at the start.  
  
_"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."_  
- Matthew, 10:34-36, King James Bible  
  


* * *

Mama called her Angela-my-angel for some time, and Angela liked it.  
  
Then, at the age of four, she was taken to visit her grandfather's grave - grandfather, not grandpa, her mother's father - and she saw the angel statue on top of it, and that night Mama had said _good night, Angela-my-angel_, and she'd known that maybe it was the wrong thing to say but there was no way to take it back after it was said, and that night Angela dreamt that she was the angel on top of grandfather's grave and that she was tasked to always watch over the stone, and from then on whenever anyone called her Angela-my-angel she would cry. Mama didn't seem to have a new diminutive planned, so she called her "dear Angela" and "my Angela", and occasionally she slipped up. Daddy always called her "baby girl".  
  


  
When she wasn't visiting her grandpa or her Grandmama, Angela was typically alone. She had few friends in town, and Mama was always busy. Daddy wasn't nearly so busy, but Angela didn't want to play with Daddy.  
  
So she made up a friend. Her friend was also called Angela, but sometimes Angela told Angela that she had another name as well, and it was one of those names that could be for a boy or a girl. Angela liked that, but she only ever called Angela Angela.  
  
Sometimes Angela sat in a corner and talked to Angela. Mama and Daddy always talked about her when she did that, but she could never listen hard enough to hear them. Sometimes they had to go and have alone time about that, and sometimes Mama screamed and Angela could never make out the words. She wondered what Daddy did to make Mama angry. Daddy was never angry at Mama. Daddy never screamed.  
  
Angela didn't mind the alone time. It gave her more time with Angela.  
  


* * *

Angela didn't remember much of being eight. She didn't remember much of anything until sixteen. She had to try very hard to remember anything from that period and when she did she didn't like it.  
  


* * *

Daddy was standing at the door.  
  
Daddy was standing at the door.  
  
Daddy was standing at the door.  
  
Daddy was standing in the door in half a hundred different poses with half a hundred different outfits and half a hundred different lengths of hair and it was half a hundred Daddies at the door and half a hundred Angelas in the bed pulling up the covers, but only _once_ was there the knife, and only _once_ did she pull the television off its shelf and with far too much strength for a fifteen year old she nearly _threw_ it and it hit Daddy and Daddy didn't move any more, none of the Daddies moved any more, and then Mama was screaming again and Angela and Angela went somewhere else for a while.  
  


* * *

They kept the knife. The knife was always with them.  
  
Angela wanted to look at the knife, but Angela didn't.  
  
Angela thought she'd been a bad girl, but Angela thought that was stupid.  
  
Angela never wanted to go back to Silent Hill, but Angela wanted nothing more.  
  
Angela knew that Mama thought she was a bad girl, but Angela didn't care what Mama thought.  
  
The blood on the knife had darkened to a crust.  
  
Angela didn't want to think what she'd used the knife for. But Angela never cleaned it.  
  


* * *

Once a social worker came to visit her. She was a big woman, who looked friendly and capable. Some would call her maternal, but she looked nothing like Mama, and that meant she couldn't be maternal to Angela. She asked her about her life and her family and how she was getting along, and Angela answered all the questions very nicely. At the end, the social worker called her Angela-my-angel, and Angela didn't cry or stiffen, but smiled and showed her the door. And when she had left, Angela picked up the knife, and thought of being called _Angela-my-angel_, and decided she had to go back to Silent Hill.  
  
Bump, bump, bump, bump. All your pieces got sent back to the start. Sorry!  
  


* * *

Outside Silent Hill was just like it always was. There were people and buildings and cars and she got directed to the cemetery. Not all roads led to Silent Hill. There was only the one road.  
  
Silent Hill was just like it always was, and then it was just like it had always been, only more overt. When the town was on fire around her and full of ghosts, Angela was not surprised at all. But she had the knife, and Angela had the knife, and if things ever got too bad, they always had the knife.  
  
She tried to burn herself in the fire a few times. But it only hurt her, it never killed her. Again, Angela wasn't surprised. Again, Angela and Angela had the knife.  
  
It wasn't long after she gave the knife away that Daddy turned up again. Again, she wasn't surprised, but she didn't have the knife any more and there was only one way things could end, and it ended that way three times before James turned up and shot Daddy, and she threw the television at him because that was how Daddy died, and if she didn't have the knife then there was no other option.  
  
James didn't give her the knife back. She'd been saved from Daddy by Daddy. Happy ending. Bump, bump, bump, bump. Sorry!  
  


* * *

_Speak. I am the Crimson One. The lies and the mist are not they but I. You all know that I am One. Yes, and the One is I. Believers hearken to me! Twenty score men and seven thousand beasts. Heed my words and speaketh them to all, that they shall ever be obeyed even under the light of the proud and merciless sun. I shall bring down bitter vengeance upon thee and thou shalt suffer my eternal wrath. The beauty of the withering flower and the last struggles of the dying man, they are my blessings. Thou shalt ever call upon me and all that is me in the place that is silent. Oh, proud fragrance of life which flies towards the heart. Oh Cup which brims with the whitest of wine, it is in thee that all begins._  
- Book of Crimson Ceremony  
  
She didn't want to be in the hotel. She'd never liked the hotel. It was too far away from her house, and it wasn't far enough away from her house. But she was in the hotel, and it was burning, and she didn't have the knife. She wasn't even trying to move her pieces from the start any more. They'd never reach home.  
  
She sat and she let the fire burn her. She didn't have the knife. James had the knife.  
  
When James turned up again, he was dressed in burlap, and he was carrying a spear, and he was wearing a massive helmet shaped like a pyramid. It all suited him, made him all the more Daddy-like.  
  
But he didn't stab her, and she was surprised.  
  
She sat, and she let the fire burn her. She didn't have the knife. Pyramid Head had the knife.  
  
She sat, and she let the fire burn her. She didn't have the knife. Daddy had the knife.  
  
She sat, and she let the fire burn her, because she was watching over the grave of Silent Hill and of Daddy and of James and of all of Angela, because one of the Angelas was Angela-my-angel and the other one was dead, and she didn't didn't didn't have the knife. If she had the knife, she wouldn't have to sit any more. If she had the knife, she wouldn't have to do anything any more. Pieces at start forever. Sorry!  
  
She sat for a very long time.  
  


end


End file.
